Kevin's Life Exploration

State of the Summer

2011-06-05T17:03:00.001-05:00

Taking an idea from my little sister's blog, I decided to do a "State of the Summer" blog to give an overview of our summer plans. We are glad to have gotten the remodel out of the way and now we can get on some of the other smaller projects we have in mind. Laura will be teaching both Summer I and Summer II, but she only has a "face to face" class during Summer I. She'll be staying really busy with that along with the little things around the house. I've started my walking back up again, I did not intend to take a break, but with all the things going on around the house, I just didn't have the time to stick to my normal routine of walking everyday, I am glad to have started back up, mainly at the park right now, but I'll be hitting the treadmill soon as well. It is rather hot outside.

In June we will be heading up to Round Rock to see Mom and Dad and that is when we will meet up with Kelli and Dan and their kids to attend one of the first Drum Corp International shows in north Austin. It will be great to meet up with them again and spend some time with them and their kids.

In July Laura and I have a little vacation planned for San Antonio. We'll be staying on the River Walk for 4 days along with attending the a big DCI show at the Alamodome and visiting Sea World! We are both really looking forward to parking the truck and just enjoying 4 days on the river walk (although we will have to drive to Sea World).

I am planning at least one trip to Schlitterbahn with Laura this summer, and I am sure she will have other trips planned with her friends as well. And sometime in the next few months we'll be doing some small projects around the house ranging from painting to small repair jobs. It should be a busy summer.

State of the Remodel - Final Episode

2011-06-04T20:20:00.001-05:00

It is finally complete. They finished most of the work up on Saturday morning of last week. Then the painter had to come in and do some stuff on Monday and Tuesday. Laura spent a lot of her last week off organizing, putting stuff back in it's place, cleaning, dusting, and planning new projects.

Overall I think everything turned out good, we learned a few things that will help us in our upcoming DIY projects. Here are a few photos of the finished project. I'll be creating a facebook album as well that will have some over all pictures of the whole project. Laura did a great job designing the changes and communicating them to the contractor. I had almost nothing to do with it all. I really like the way she designed the hallway CD storage shelves, which is the lower half of the shelves in the master bathroom, which are on the top half of the wall. There is a "Tim Allen" aspect thing in it as well. We got a power flush toilet and boy does that thing flush. It's hair trigger handle activates a flush like I have never seen before, it's a bit loud, but nothing survives, it's done in a few seconds and refills very quickly. Very nice! :)

Hallway CD Storage area - bottom half of the wall it shares with the master bathroom

Master Bathroom Shelves - Upper part of the wall shared with the CD Storage

The Master Bathroom vanity

An overall picture of the kitchen

State of the Remodel - Episode III

2011-05-18T18:43:00.001-05:00

Work is still moving along. Maybe a bit slower than we would hope or would have anticipated, but it is moving along. We did have a few setbacks that slowed things down.

One problem was pipes for the sink drain were slightly “up hill” (because the sink was deeper). It would drain normally when just running the water, but if we ran our new super quiet disposal, water would backup into the sink when it was shut off (some sort of suction action going on there). So we spent this last weekend pretty much without a kitchen sink, which is no fun. The drainage pipes ran behind the dishwasher, so we had to wait till Monday so they could open up the wall and replace all the pipes. So the kitchen stands 99% finished with just the baseboards remaining.

Finished Kitchen

Today they started on the tile flooring in the master closet, which is the same tile that is used in the kitchen.

In the master bathroom all the walls are done, the sheetrock installed and the shower is installed. The painters should be coming into finish off the walls tomorrow, then the cabinet guy will be in Thursday and Friday to put in the vanity and shelving. Then they can do the final finishing touches and the flooring and then they’ll put the new toilet in (finally!). Below is a few photos of the progress in the master bathroom. Maybe they'll be done by mid-week next week or late next week.

Entry to the room where the toilet will be

The new shower

Where the vanity will be going

Where the door to the bathroom was, and where it is now

State of the Remodel - Episode II

2011-05-08T16:18:00.001-05:00

Another week has past, and a lot has been done, but nothing has been finished. I'll start of with the smaller things. We were going to have the front door re-finished, but that turned out to be more than we bargained for, so we decided on just getting a new door instead. Which will also help out with the lack of "seal" around our current door as they will be replacing the door frame as well. I'll put up some pictures when the door is actually in.

Finish Cabinets in Master Closet

The new closet still lacks the tile floor and baseboards, but we are using it as our closet now. It turned out really nice and will work very well once we can organize it better (once the bathroom is finished). They did a really good job the staining and the quality of the hardware is very good. Drawers work really nice, etc. Being as enclosed as it is, it is hard to get a good picture.

Master Bath - "During"

Master Bath "Before"

They also started on the master bathroom this week. The room is all gutted out now, the only thing left in there is some of the old framing and the some of the floor. Once they finish the kitchen early this coming week, they will get back on the bathroom and get the framing up so the cabinet maker can get measurements to start building the shelves, cabinets and vanity.

Kitchen Sink "Before"

Kitchen Sink "During"

Laura doesn't want me to show all of the kitchen, so I'll just give y'all a little taste of the work that is going on in there. Below is the before and after photos of the sink area. Laura chose a big one "pan" sink for the kitchen. And we decided to splurge a bit and she got a really fancy faucet. Not only does the "sprayer" pull out of the faucet, but it is a touch unit. So once the water is set with the handle, you can leave it "on" and just touch the faucet and it turns on/off. Really handy for when your hands are wet or dirty, as it does work with the back of your hand as well. Plus, we had a new quiet disposal installed as well, so quiet it is hard to hear it.

On Monday, they will be adding the back-splash to the kitchen and then Tuesday they will be grouting it. Then they will get back to work on the bathroom. We figure there will be about another two weeks to get everything finished, then it'll take a week to get everything cleaned up! :)

State of the Remodel

2011-04-30T11:47:00.002-05:00

The house is alive with hammering, sanding, and whatever else sounds there are when people are tearing things down and putting things up. The house is a mess, but it is moving along nicely. Laura has been wanting to do some changes around the house for awhile and we finally decided to make the move. What are we doing you ask? Well let me see if I can explain it.

Framing of the master closet.

Stage one is the back room. We are taking the "add on" room that is in the back of the house and splitting it up. Half of the room will be the walkway to the backyard and also serve as Pearl's (Laura's Poodle) room when we are not home. The other half will be our new master closet. We are moving the door that went from our room to the back room and moving it out a bit to give us an entrance into the closet.

After the drywall was put up

Drawer side of the cabinets

Yesterday they put in the cabinets that Laura designed for the master closet and they look really nice. Today they are staining them and we should be able to start moving our stuff in there middle of next week. The north part of the closet will have drawers which will replace the dressers. The south wall will have our hangup clothes and 3 deep shelves. There will also be a small place for hanging clothes on the east wall as well. And a shelf running all along the top all the way around the closet. It should really be a nice setup once it is done. We are leaving the build in window seat that has internal storage and Laura will be putting some cushions on it so that we can use it for setting and dressing.

New tile in the kitchen

Stage two is the kitchen. They laid the tile floor yesterday and did the grout work today. The tile is just the first of the work we have lined up for the kitchen. We are also replacing the countertops and backsplash. Plus getting a nice sink and faucet. Once all the work is done, Laura and I will be removing the wallpaper and painting the walls. We also plan to paint the very bottoms of the cabinets that are still brown - we skipped them when we did the initial painting.

They have not started on the "main" project yet, stage three. That being the master bathroom. Currently are master bath also has our closet it in. That will be gutted out and we will be expanding the bathroom. We'll be enclosing the toilet in a little room, installing a new bigger shower and then having new cabinets installed in both the bathroom and in the hall closet that shares the wall with the bathroom.

We are also finally getting our front door refinished. It looks severely weather beaten. They will sand it down and re-varnish and and we had them install a full view glass storm door as well.

Laura has done a great job working on the designs and communicating that to the contractor and the cabinet maker. I've had a few items I requested, but most of it has been all her. More photos as we progress in the project.

Blogger in 2011

2011-03-15T07:54:00.003-05:00

Looking forward to seeing the new changes this year!

Walking in the Digital Age

2011-01-06T07:35:00.005-06:00

Starting late in life, I decided it was time to start walking and get my health in order. I've been diagnosed with early stage COPD (Emphysema) due to all my years of smoking. I was actually diagnosed 15 or so years ago, but it was mild back then and I stupidly continued to smoke until August 2009. Anyway, after doing some research, I figured out that the best thing I could do was to exercise so that I can keep my body health so the progression of the disease is slowed down. I figured walking would be the best bet.

One thing I figured out quickly was that walking takes up time. At first it was just 20 minutes, then as I progressed (fairly quickly) to longer times. Walking for 45-60 minutes eats up a lot of time that could be spent doing something else. I figured out that it would be the best time to listen to sermon podcasts. I had been storing up podcasts from several preachers that I had not gotten around to listening to yet and this would be the perfect thing. I have sermons from John Piper, Mark Driscoll and R.C. Sproul that I could listen to daily and never run out of (unless they stop producing them). So I made sure my iPhone was loaded up with them for listening. But, I loath the iPhone earbuds!

A year or so ago, I had picked up a Sony bluetooth headset that are actual headphones and not little earbuds that fall out of my ears at any slight tug of the cord. So I charged them up and give them a try and they work almost perfect. Only real problem is they can start sliding out of position if I am fairly bouncy while walking. But, they make up for that easily. They have volume controls, stop, rewind and fast forward controls. Along with a button to answer the phone using it's built in microphone. But of course the nicest thing is the bluetooth, no cables or cords to get in the way.

Next I needed some software to record my daily walks, and I knew there had to be an "app for that". My sister and brother in law use "Runkeeper", but had already gotten one called Walkmeter, which I am really liking. It does a good job with GPS and maps out my walks. Keeps track of time, distance, pace speed, average speed, and best speed. It also will compare the current walk to my best time. In order to do that it can keep multiple routes. Which will come in handy when I start to walk at different parks for a change of scenery. I also have it post my walk results on my Google Calendar so I will have easy access if I want to lookup my results. I can also post to Facebook and Twitter, but I doubt my friends would want to see all that boring data :)

One thing I discovered this past week that I thought was really cool is that if I stop the podcast I am listening to. After a few seconds the Walkmeter program will sense that the podcast has stopped and it will announce all the statistics about the current walk. Then I can start the podcast back up again. Very useful for checking on the progress of my walk and if I am going faster or slower than my usual pace.

The other thing I do like about walking is just getting out. The weather has been really nice, so that has helped a lot. As it warms up I might not feel the same about it, but it should not be too bad, especially if I am just walking. And when Laura goes, she will usually take Pearl, her toy poodle, so they get to enjoy the outdoors as well.

As for results, I am walking around 2.9 miles now (4 laps around Schupp Park) and it usually takes about 50 minutes to complete it. My best so far has been 49:05 minutes at a pace of 16:58 minutes per mile. Where as my first solo walk was at a 18:55 minutes per mile average. Maybe soon I can start adding a bit of jogging/running in there as well, but I want to get approval from the Dr's. before I do that.

2011 Reading Results

2011-01-01T15:13:00.003-06:00

Another year has gone and I really did a number on the reading list this year. I have been slowing down somewhat toward the end of the year as I have been reading more RSS feeds during the evening. I am currently in the middle of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin. They are long books, but really good reads. Fantasy with out an overload of fantasy. And what is even cooler is that HBO will have "The Game of Thrones" series starting this year! I am so looking forward to it and Laura wants to see it as well. So we'll be subscribing to HBO for several months out of the year just to watch this series.

So here is the list for 2010:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (5 books of the Trilogy)
Fatal System Error (Kindle)
The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan (kindle)
The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan (kindle)
The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan (Kindle)
The Dilbert Principle - Scott Adams
The Battle of the Labrinth - Rick Riordan - (kindle)
The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan - (kindle)
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin (kindle)
A Clash of Kings - Geroge R.R. Martin (kindle)
The Heart of Technical Excellence - Curt Taipale

Here's to another year of reading!

New Year Blog Move

2011-01-01T15:06:00.003-06:00

Well, I have decided to move back to blogger. I've spent the last year or two blogging on wordpress, but I've become a big Google fan/user and blogger is associated with Google, so here I am back again.

I did attempt to import my wordpress blog, so that I could have all my posts back here, but everytime I try to upload the converted xml file, blogger just sits on "Writing Blogs" and never gets further than that. And there I am not sure if it is a problem with the blogger import or with the "conversion" program that I ran from a website to convert the file. So, until I am able to import all the posts, if you would like to read the past few years worth of blog posts, you can go to my old site.

Copy Cat!!! - Moving

2008-12-12T08:21:00.002-06:00

Well, since everyone else is moving to wordpress. I did the same.

Please update your google readers, blogrolls, links, memory synapsis's to http://razorsdomain.wordpress.com

Ultimate Bass

2008-12-10T07:15:00.003-06:00

As some of you may know, I dabble at playing the bass guitar. Mostly it is an off and on love affair, but lately it's been off due to the bass I have at the house. I used to have the Church's 5-string bass and Ampeg amp setting in my office and I loved playing it and practicing (Mostly when Laura was not around :> ). But the Church is using the bass again, so it stays at the Church, and I have been messing with an old 4-string guitar that has intonation problems, loose electronics and an uncomfortable neck.

Last week I mentioned to Laura that I wanted to get rid of it (she suggested putting it in the alley way, which is what we do with junk we don't want and can't sell). Anyway, I've been looking at basses lately and I think I found the one I want!!

Nice Eh!? :) Actually, no, I don't want that one. I will settle for a nice 5-string again, but I just wanted to post that picture :)

Plug for Neal Morse

2008-12-06T18:14:00.003-06:00

It's Saturday evening, I am finishing up some work for a DATA-COM client, coding away, listening to Neal Morse. Over the last 44.5 years, I have had a lot of favorite bands and musicians. Some have stood the test of time (Megadeth and Maynard Ferguson), but none of really touched me they way Neal's music does. And, to top that off, since he left Spock's Beard, all of the stuff that he has put out has been all Christian music.

Every single CD he has put out is just simple amazing. And they are not all the same. Most of them are progressive rock epics. He also has a couple of worship CDs released as well. But I really enjoy the Prog stuff the most. One of them called "Sola Scriptura" is about the life of Martin Luther. Luther changed Christianity like no other (except Jesus himself of course). Neal captures the whole store of Luther in an EPIC prog CD, consisting of only 4 songs, but lasts around 70 minutes! Simply amazing.

Anyway... I recently got the "Sola Scriptura and Beyone Live!" DVD, and it is just as good as all his other stuff, but LIVE... mistakes, improv and all. I wanted to post this here so that maybe someone else would get interested or may have never heard of him and would like his stuff. So, here is the trailer for the DVD.

If you are a fan of Prog Rock, check it out. Probably the upper top of musicians.

Enjoy!

Gas back to Normal?

2008-12-04T10:01:00.003-06:00

Well, back to normal as to what we would call normal down here. This picture is hard to see, but unleaded gas price at 23rd and Nolana, $1.49 per gallon. Not too shabby :)

I took this photo on the way home from work yesterday from my ubah cell phone. I should have had my new camera with me, but that'll have to do (click to see a large view, still rather blurry though).

After getting home and changing clothes, I finally went out and had my eyes checked. Not big change in Rx, I just needed to get new glasses really. So, after the eye exam, I awaited my darling princess (LJ) who would put up with me for over an hour as we tried to select some regular frames and then some frames for some sunglasses. Why was I waiting for LJ? Well she works there at the place, so not only did she help me pick out some great frames, that'll make me look SEXAH! but, we got the family discount on them as well! :) It also gave us a chance to chat and catch up since we don't see each other too often these days.

My new regular glasses will be ready today, I'll pick them up after work, but my sunglasses were special order, so they won't be ready until the 13th.

I am glad it is Thursday! Weekend is almost here, not that it really means much anymore! I had planned on some serious coding today, but as usual, I got side tracked early in the morning and have not been able to get back on track yet.

Wow, Christmas Already

2008-12-02T08:33:00.002-06:00

It really struck me yesterday morning. I stroll into the office around my usual 7am time. No one else is there yet, which I think is great! I get a lot done between 7am and 8am. Anyway, as I was doing some of my morning things, I noticed Musak had Christmas music on, then it struck me! Ack! It's Christmas time! Well, at that certain time, I was not too excited about the holidays, but the holiday feeling is slowly starting to seep into my system.

So, I've got my TSO (Trans Siberian Orch) backgrounds up. Last night I searched the DirecTV listing for Christmas shows to record on the DVRs. I added my regular old christmas sugar cookies to the grocery list (The ones you just pop in the oven for 20 minutes, they have like Christmas trees on them). It's take Laura a week or two more before she gets in the spirit, she has to wait until classes are all done. But, I'll probably coax her into putting up the tree this weekend.

Health wise, I am doing better. It's been kinda rough without the caffeine, but I am surviving. I haven't had any headaches in the past day or two, so that is getting better. Wednesday after working I am going to have my eyes checked (finally), it's been probably 5 years since I had them checked.

Until Next time!

Thanksgiving at Home

2008-11-28T17:01:00.006-06:00

We hope that all of our friends and family had a nice and happy Thanksgiving. As some of you know, we decided to stay home due to some health issues that I had a few days before the Thanksgiving holidays. I am doing fine, I just sure miss my caffeine :) We stocked up on Koolaid packets, Sprites and Caffeine free DP's. I still have our De-Caf tea, which we have always used, and now we are using De-Caf coffee as well. The De-Caf DPs are eh... ok I guess. Not like the real thing, definitely.

As for Thanksgiving, Early Thanksgiving morning Laura and I ventured to HEB and got in our shopping before the crowds. Then we decided not to have our Thanksgiving meal until later in the afternoon. Laura spent most of her day working on a paper for her History class at UTPA, and I relaxed and worked on a conversion for one of our clients (more on that in a bit). Then around 5:00 we had a great little meal, just Laura and I. Some ham, green bean casserole, mashed tatters, roles, and cranberries hmmm. It was great. We both were wishing we were in Austin for Mom's cookin', but this will work.

Must of today has been about the same as yesterday. Laura working on her History paper and I am working on the AS400 conversion. Laura made us a wonder breaklunch around 11, then she did some cleaning and misc stuff, then back to work on the paper. I did a bit of sweeping around the house and just now shut down the client AS400 I have sitting here, about to relax, figure out what we are going to do for supper and watch some TV or something.

Speaking of the AS400

There it sits on my office floor. This is for a DATA-COM Client, I am in the process of migrating their files and programs off their S/36 and onto the AS400. Which is turning into more work than I thought, but that is ok. Up to V5R2, IBM included a Migration Utility, which helped with the migration process. But it is kinda finicky and doesn't always do the right thing. But as of V5R3 (which this machine has), that utility is not included! But, actually it's better. This way I get to monitor the migration process, make a list of programs that failed the conversion, etc. I have restored all the files and libraries, compiled all the programs and screen formats. There were maybe 20-30 programs that did not compile successfully, so I will look at them tomorrow. After that, I have to work on a solution for a little dilemma associated with the move to the AS400.

One of the tricks we used on The S/36 will not work on the AS400. SUBROC, a subroutine that we used to do some printing tricks will not work on the AS400 (actually it does not exist on the AS400). So, I'll have to figure the best way to get around that. I have 2-4 ideas on how to do it, just need to figure out which one will be the best option.

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving, we hope that our Colorado family makes it home save and sound, back to the cold north. We'll eat some whataburgers and Patos for you :)

It's not that bad I guess

2008-11-20T12:45:00.002-06:00

Well, I'll be leaving in a bit to take Laura to the airport, and then I'll be missing her for 6 days, but she'll be back. I hope! Weather is nice in Cali... :)

The root canal went pretty well I think. Thanks to everyone for the prayers. I was in the room around 9, and out by about 10. It was a pre-molar tooth, so there was only one root to contend with. Afterwards I came hope and relaxed a bit, grabbed a quick nap, mainly because I was really tense during the procedure and need to wind down. After I take Laura to the airport, I'll be headed back to work for the rest of the day.

Not going to be a great day

2008-11-20T08:13:00.002-06:00

Well, I already know today is not going to be a good day, but I'll survive :)

9:00 I am scheduled for my first ever root canal :(. But, it's time I get my teeth fixed up and this will actually be the 2nd step. About 1-2 months ago, I had to have another 2 extractions, since the teeth were not worth keeping, and also got a "deep cleaning" or root scaling. That was not fun. Hopefully the root canal won't be as bad. I'll have it crowned probably after the first of the year.

Also today Laura is flying out for San Diego for some sort of Communications conference. She'll be back on Tuesday of next week, then on Thursday morning early, we'll be driving up to Austin to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and the Denver crew. We are definitely looking forward to that.

New Computers and Virii!!

2008-11-10T11:34:00.003-06:00

Saturday morning, I headed over to the south side of McAllen to CompUSA to get some upgrades for my main computer system. I came back with a AMD CPU, new MB, 500gb HD, 2gig of RAM, and a new case, along with a few other items that I would use to take my old components, and make a computer for Nick.

I spent saturday afternoon setting up the new machine, transferring files from the old HD's to the new one, installing all the software I use, etc etc. I was pretty much finished with it by Saturday night... time to rest.

Sunday AM, I go back to customizing my setup, and my AVG gets hit with some virii being put on my machine! ALERT!... after a few seconds I notice that they are on the shared drives. And only shares that Laura has access to. So, I took a gander at her laptop and sure enough, it was infected. I shut it down and made note to deal with it after church. I also scanned her USB stick, and it was infected as well. I got it cleaned up and told her to stay away from the laptop until I was done. It had been unplugged from the network, and I also powered down our wireless just in case.

I made a few attempts to clean it, to no avail. We had already discussed reinstalling that particular machine, as it was getting dog slow. So yesterday afternoon, I just removed the partitions and reinstalled. I am about 90% done with reinstalling now, and will finish it up tonight. Then I can get back to messing with my new speed demon.

Man that new setup is fast. Now if only it could speed up my typing and improve my grammar as well!

Traveling Aboard (with a broad)

2008-11-10T11:23:00.002-06:00

Saturday Afternoon, Laura and I ventured to another country. We traveled down to the Weslaco area, then headed south, parked our care on the US side of the river and got our exercise walking over the bridge to Progesso. We had started our quest to find the ancient grail of vanilla!

The contrast of north and south is just so amazing. Never mind the beggar's presenting their caps through the openings in the bridge side rail. What first caught my eye, and it wasn't until we were in the pharmacy, was the armored police vehicle, loaded up with policia, sporting shiny machine guns.

Once are shopping venture was done, and as we were headed back toward the bridge, we noticed a sandbag bunker, with 3 armed police, all sporting similar weapons. And this was not the mexican border officials, it was the police, about a block away from the bridge. Although it is amazing to see that, it was a bit re-assuring.

On other things, we went to the same store we went to last time (which we conversed about on our trip over, it was before we got married... been awhile :> ). They have all kinds of neat stuff in there. Of course you have your liquor, vanilla and mexican candies and cookies. But they have clothing, statues, swords, and all sorts of mexican made items. It's a great place to just browse around, just watch your head.

We have to go back to get some more vanilla this coming weekend, we did get enough, but the wife's Mom visited us on Sunday and aquired a few bottles before leaving. So we need to replace those ;)

The Truth

2008-11-02T12:37:00.001-06:00

Today I will forgo my rants and ravs, my delirious babble and send you to the truth.

You cannot be a Christian and vote for Obama

Awesome memory, still etched in my mind

2008-10-28T08:10:00.004-05:00

I don't recall the exact date, or even the year. But about 7-9 years ago, Laura, me and the kids went down to Brownsville for the air show down there. It was during the fall months, as we were not sure if they were going to actually have the show because there was a strong cold front forecast to arrive that day. We got to tour the hangers, watch a few planes fly around. But the main event was a flyby by a Stealth Bomber. As the event went on, they were not sure how much longer the event would last and if the bomber would make it. It was flying in from the Corpus base I believe. The low dark clouds started moving in, and it looked very dismal. Those of you that have lived down here know what it looks like when strong fronts come in.

Over the PA, they kept announcing that the Bomber was in route, it did leave it's base and would attempt a flyby, hopefully before the rains started and there was still some visibility. The weather started getting worse, so we all made our way to the parking lot, to our car. The PA announcements started getting faint, but I could hear they it was close, all of us looking around the sky to see if we could see it.

Then, out of the dark clouds, this HUGE BAT flew down, roaring like giant. Slowly flying over us, ground shaking, people pointing and hollaring. It was the most amazing sight I have ever seen. I was extremely impressed and extremely proud of our country. In awe at our accomplishments. It's a sight and memory that I will never forget.

This morning I happened upon a video of another flyby, not near as impressive as what we saw, but impressive none the less. Enjoy, although I wish everyone could have experienced what we experienced that afternoon.

Do Overs!!!!?

2008-10-08T07:41:00.004-05:00

I should have known better. I had high hopes... We were on the right track... But... After watching the debate last night, I realize that we have the two terrible candidates for president that we could have. Whats with McCain proposing yet another bailout on live TV last night? sheeze! Bailout Bailout! Shut Up McCain! Quit giving my tax dollars away!

I will also admit that the debate itself was not what I expected. It was supposed to be a town hall meeting. Not your regular old typical debate questions. Questions that we have already heard answered on the campaign trail and in other debates. There were only two "original" questions asked last night, both were great, but out of all the questions, only two of them sparked new information. One was the question on Israel, the other was "What don't you know, and how will you learn it". Of course both candidates skipped over the question and continued talking about the same stuff we have heard for the last 3 weeks.

My only hope now, is that McCain can pull off a win on November. Why? Well, of course, to me he is the lesser of two evils. Secondly, if he whens, Palin will get some much needed experience which will hopefully put her in a position to run for President in 2012.

Neal Morse vs The Osmonds

2008-09-30T15:48:00.003-05:00

Teri will probably like this blog :/

I was listening to a CD I just got in by Neal Morse, excellent christian progressive rock. It came with a bonus CD, so after listening to the 1st cd, I popped in the 2nd CD, and the first song just made me jump back hmm 25-30 years maybe? WOW!!! Below is the original version that Teri will remember as well. But Neal, George and Mike all do a great cover of it.

Interesting... I just spotted this other blog entry about the song, on an Osmond blog?

Amp Room

2008-09-24T08:05:00.004-05:00

I heard about this "idea" awhile back, never really knew what they meant until I ran it through my brain for awhile and then it dawned on me, and it's a great idea. One thing that I am sure some churches struggle with (including ours) is guitar amps on stage being to loud, or just adding unwanted sound to the music. But, how does a guitarist hear himself if he doesn't have the amp there.

One note before I go on. We have two guitarist now. One on bass, one on acoustic guitar. Both of them use DI (Direct Injection) boxes. The DI box takes the signal from the guitar itself, splits it up, sends the sound to the main mixer board, and then also to their amp. That way I get clean, un-modified sound. With Electric guitar I would not do this, I would either mic the amp, or pull signal after the amp processing so I get the exact type of sound that is being sent out from the amp.

Ok, back to the topic. I have started to hear about "amp room(s)". Hmm interesting concept. Above is a photo of an amp room that I "borrowed" from the net. The way it works is... on stage, the guitarist just plugs in his guitar. That cord feeds into the "amp room" where the Amp is setup. These rooms can be fairly small, and since no one really sees them, you can us acoustic absorption devices to cut down on reverb and reflection. In this room is were the amp is "mic'd". The sound from this mic is then fed to the mixer(s) and is sent back to the stage via the monitors or via In-Ear monitor (IEM). Whalla! Pure amp sound, with no amps on stage! Interesting huh? Of course this idea takes pre-planning in the building, but it is something I will keep in mind if I ever have input on a church/stage design.

Hands off my Equipment!

2008-09-22T08:59:00.004-05:00

Argh... Sunday morning I was in a great mood, till I got to the church, did some sound checks, and noticed most of our stage equipment had been tampered with. Levels on the monitors had been messed with and the monitor mixer board had been messed with. So I went about getting things reset to best guess levels as fast as possible before practice started. During practice I had a few issues with feedback on the monitors, but worked them out fairly quick and thought I had it all under control.

At this point, I was still in a fairly good mood, enjoying Sunday School and then the worship service. (well... enjoying might be too much of a word, During the worship service I am usually a wreck, nervous, fidgeting with the main board, trying to make sure everything sounds good, make sure it's not to loud, or too soft, etc.)....

Worship goes on, we are on the 4th or 5th song I think, then BAAMMM!! Huge low frequency feedback emitting from the stage. Panic city!! Gladly the worship team just kept going, no hiccups, no one stopped singing, just kept going. I will frantically dropping microphones from the mix one by one, trying to clear the problem, to no avail. I happened to look up and see Nathan (the pianist) missing with his piano, so I killed his monitor and that cleared the feedback. He kept his piano off and the 7 singers, along with a flute and bass guitar finished the song. It was actually really pretty sounding. After the song was over, I lowered levels on the piano monitor, and gave him the ok to turn things back on again, and the service went on.

I happily kept my cool, and last night during worship practice, my assistant and I completely re-set the monitor board from scratch. So we should be ok now. We figured out that possibly some kids from the spanish church that meets there on Tuesdays and Saturdays had probably been missing with the knobs and got things messed up. So, I had a little discussion with our pastor, politely stating that no kids should be allowed on stage for any service (unless of course it's planned that way) and to assert to both congregations that no-one should be touching the equipment. And I think that with the real life experience that our church just had, they now understand why I don't want anyone touching the AV equipment.

Printer Support Personal

2008-09-19T14:57:00.001-05:00

Finally - A nice RPG Editor

2008-09-19T14:00:00.006-05:00

For those that are not programmers, you can skip this blog :)

Today I happened upon a program called RPGAlive. Basically it's a PC program that runs in the background, and "watches" your terminal emulation program. It can sense when SEU is running and then it reads the code and makes it "pretty" and a bit more understandable. One thing I have always disliked about IBM's SEU or FSEDIT is they are very crude and not real intuitive. Since I have now moved from the S36 environment to the AS400, meaning I moved from FSEDIT (back) to SEU, I have not been very comfortable when I am coding, like I used to be with FSEDIT. Maybe this will change things.

(click on the image to see the full size and animation that shows what it does)

That is a screen shot that I "borrowed" from RPGAlive's website to demostrate what it does. It is really helpful/useful when coding, especially if you are doing alot of loops or similar. I also like that feature that "underlines" fields for each type of oper command, so you know where the fields are without having to go to single line mode. Only problem with RGVAlive is it's $800 price tag.

The above is another program I use from time to time called CodeStudio (and it's FREE!), it's a PC program that FTPs the source code from the 400, lets you modify it, then FTPs it back to the 400. Only problem is it has a few quirks that I don't like, but I am starting to get used to it.

If I could get RPGAlive, I would probably switch back to SEU for all my coding. I have 30 days to try it out. After that I might end up switching back to CodeStudio.

Like when I was a Kid

2008-09-15T11:50:00.002-05:00

It's lunch time, I am sitting at home having a Pimento Cheese Sandwich! Hmmm good. Been a long while since I had one of these.

Actually... UP with Ike!

2008-09-10T12:57:00.003-05:00

As God is in control of all things, he likes toying with us with hurricanes. They go north, they go south, they go west, but no one knows, for sure, when or have fast. Yesterday morning, most computer models and forecasters has Ike going in around Houston, as the day went on, the forecasted landfall moved further and further south, down to Brownsville. As the afternoon came and went, the forecasted landfall moved back north again. As of today they are saying it looks like it will go in somewhere between Corpus and Houston areas.

Yesterday at lunch, Nick and I went to Lowes and picked up some plywood and hardware just in case. If Ike does stay North, Laura and I will still build some custom window covers out of the plywood and have them ready for the next time. If it does go in as expected, we will still get some rain and winds, but not near what we had with Dolly. And hopefully the rain from Ike will work it's way into the Austin area and give Mom and Dad some much needed rain.

On another note: After lots of considerations, thinking, declining, thinking again, considering, and a few cold beer (Bacardi Limon & coke for Laura) meditation moments. Laura and I have decided to step into the HD world. This morning we ordered a Sharp LC-37D64U LCD TV with 1080p resolution. I am also dealing with DirecTV to try and get a good deal on 2 HD DVRs. So far we have not reached an agreement. I might end up just getting 1 HD DVR and 1 HD receiver. Why 2? well Nick put his JVC flat panel in the living room, the new TV will be in our bedroom (where we watch 95% of our TV). We would put the HD-DVR in the bedroom and just have the regular HD Receiver in the living room.

Here is a picture of the TV.

Down with Ike!

2008-09-09T09:04:00.003-05:00

Laura, Nick and I are starting to make plans for yet another hurricane. Ike has decided that Lousiana and upper Texas coast isn't as fun as the lower coast. I will probably be taking a bit of an extended lunch today to go by Lowes or Home Depot with Nick and pickup some plywood, screws and other supplies. If I can do that, tonight I'll cut the plywood to fit and possibly pre-screw it and get them ready to go. I'll also probably go by a pet store to pickup a carrier for the dogs, just incase we decide to evacuate.

After Dolly, Laura and I agreed that we would probably leave if a Cat3 or higher hurricane came in. We are still considering that option. We will keep an eye on the news and weather channel for the next several days. If we do leave, we'll board up the house, lock it down tight and head north. If it is expected to stay Cat1 or Cat2, we might stay. Not real sure what Nick is going to do yet, we have not talked to him about it. But if we leave, we are leaving because I don't want anyone in the house, so he'll probably stay elsewhere or go with us.

I'll update again as we get closer and get more info on the expected track later this week.

We have a Roof over our heads!

2008-09-08T16:16:00.003-05:00

The workers finished our roof yesterday morning, Finally! There was a few delays due to mis-communication, but the roof is now finished and paid for. Laura and I have alot of other projects planned for around the house, but they will have to wait for the appropriate funds. Next on our agenda is a outside faucet that is next to our garage that as leaked since we got the house. It's gotten progressively worse, so we pushed that to the top of the list. After that we are going to get the siding replaced on the east front window and around the front door, then a complete repaint. Lots more planned after that, but those projects alone will take a while to get done (ie: finance :> )

We are keeping a close eye on Ike this week, hopefully he will steer north of use and go into unpopulated areas. LA definite doesn't need any more rain, we don't either :)

Just a image to make this blog look interesting. This is the view from my desk as I wrote this :>

Palin blew our Roof off!!

2008-09-04T10:41:00.005-05:00

Well, not really, but it just so happens that as we watched Palin last night, we had no shingles on our roof. Not long ago, my sister and brother inlaw had roof work done. Now it is our turn. Yesterday the house was alive with trampling on the roof, hammering, and roof shingles flying off the roof into a trailer parked in our drive way. They should be finishing up the job today, so if I remember, I'll get some photos and post them.

And what about that Palin speech last night!? Laura and I both had problems staying up, waiting for her speech, but once it started, we had no problems keeping our eyes opened and our ears trained on her words. I think she did an excellent job, and got in some really good jabs to the media and Obama.

No one could do this when I was young

2008-09-03T13:24:00.000-05:00

This is insane!

Hurricanes Everywhere!

2008-09-02T08:10:00.002-05:00

Wow, is the hurricane season off to roar or not! I just hope they stay in the atlantic and out of the Gulf. We are scheduled to have our roof replaced this week (we hope) because of Dolly. We don't need anymore repair work! (Actually we do, but not hurricae related).

Laura is off and running with school. She is teaching classes and also taking a class at UTPA. This keeps her either away from the house or studying alot. So Nick and I have taken over most of the chores and cooking.

We really enjoyed our Labor day weekend. We got some chores done. Laura did some shopping and the rest of the time we just relaxed.

Hope everyone is doing well!

CPU vs GPU

2008-09-02T08:03:00.001-05:00

Myth Busters!!!!

Watch this demostration comparing todays CPU with tomorrows GPU

Go McCain!!

2008-08-29T09:32:00.003-05:00

I first heard about this yesterday, did a bit of research and was hoping and hoping that McCain would pick Sarah Palin to be his running mate. As she is pure conservative. I don't much like McCain myself, but with her on the ticket, it makes it promising.

Of course it is 9:30am, and things are not officially announced, so he might very well pick someone else, but, if he does pick Palin, I think it'll be a great ticket and I think the liberals will have a hard time beating them.

** Edited ** And to announce it this morning, totally overshadowing the DNC convention was perfect!

The RGV goes Hi-Tech with Street View

2008-08-12T15:54:00.003-05:00

The Digital age has arrived in the Rio Grande Valley. I just noticed today that maps.google.com now has street views for most of the Valley. I looked at our house, looked at the house in that we grew up in Edinburg, very interesting for me and I live here, so maybe some of you that have moved will enjoy a cruise around the valley with Street View.

Back to Blogger - Dolly Update

2008-07-29T08:07:00.003-05:00

Well, as the post below this reads, I blogged on Myspace regularly, but I think blogger looks better, so I am gonna start blogging back here again.

Things are going well after our visit from Dolly. The insurance adjuster came by on Sunday morning, and is recommending a complete re-roofing, shingles and tar paper. As well as some replacement of some drywall in the house that got a bit wet. We are working to get estimates from some roofing companies, but we are in the "waiting line". Two of the places that Laura called yesterday said they would get to us as soon as they could.

Otherwise, work is gearing back up. All but one of our stores is back open again. McAllen is just about back to normal. I know part of South Padre is still without power, and there is still flooding throughout the Valley, hopefully that will all be clearing up soon.

Blog on MySpace

2007-01-15T09:39:00.000-06:00

Well, since Laura and several of my friends are on myspace now, I am moving my blog posting to over there. They are viewable without having an account, so you don't have to sign up to see the blogs. You can find my myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/razorsdomain.

Too many fires on my Iron!

2006-12-14T11:57:00.000-06:00

This VPN I am working on for my employer is a nightmare! We have 4-5 vendors involved and it's a pain to figure out who you need to talk to about what and then when you find the right vendor, you have to wait for them to get you the info you need, and that can sometimes take a week!

I finally had enough with one of them that supplied a VPN/Router for our office location, and I hooked up the router and fixed the configuration myself and got it running. Then I discover that the VPN is not even setup in the router, so now I have to wait for another response as to why the VPN was not setup and how do I go about setting it up. I should charge the idiots for my time.

And we haven't even gotten any of our remote locations online yet!

I knew I should have designed this thing myself and done it totally on my own.

Start of a new week

2006-12-04T05:58:00.000-06:00

It's monday yet again! It sure seems like the weeks go by fast now that I have a full time job. We had a very nice time this last weekend. Friday night we all went to hear Zachary's chior sing at McHi, then after 30 minutes of fighting incoming football traffic and outgoing concert traffic we made it to the bowling alley (just 1 mile away) for a regular Friday practice.

Saturday we picked up the boys and had lunch at Pizza Hut and then Laura, LJ and Zach spent the afternoon putting up the Christmas decorations, and then Laura and I spent the night working on a little anniversary slideshow presentation for the Church.

Sunday was spent relaxing the majority of the time. Our Slideshow presentation at the church went really well, although we didn't expect to make people cry. We had an 8 minute presentation with 122 photos taken over the last 4 years, we think it was a good balance of emotions, some sad, some happy and some funny. After our normal Sunday nap, I goofed on the computers while watching Dallas squeeze out a win! After that we caught some of the Denver game before falling asleep around 9:30.

This weekend was also a myspace mania weekend here. I created a myspace account on Friday and preceeded to find a few friends on there that also had accounts, then Laura created an account and profile, and even Laura's mom created one as well. It's not the most intuitive site I have seen, but it seems to work well for the younger generation.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-23T06:24:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Laura and I are starting our 4 day weekend! And I am starting my Project for this time off. Since I bought my main PC several years ago, I have never reinstalled the system. So it is currently pretty cluttered with installs/uninstalls, etc, etc. I just completed a backup of important data on the C: drive partition and I am about to double check things and then reinstall XP on a formated C:. I have most of my stuff backed up to drive D & G as well as static files and such that are stored there. So it should be a fairly fast and simple project. I should be done later today and after a bit of reinstalling software and tweaking the setup, I should be back to normal with a much more responsive machine.

As for Thanksgiving Dinner, Laura, LJ and I will be going to Laura's aunts for lunch/dinner. Other than that we just have plans to do some work this weekend, both around the house and for the church.

Our Only Fun is Bowling

2006-11-21T08:35:00.000-06:00

Well, my blog is due for an update, and really not much as been going on. We are mainly busy with work doing things around the house. We are really glad Thanksgiving is coming up. We'll both be off Thursday and Friday and we'll be having Thanksgiving Dinner at Laura's aunts house on Thursday. I'll be doing client work over the holiday weekend and hopefully can get it all done and installed before the weekend so that we can enjoy the weekend.

Bowling has been going well, 3 weeks ago we were in 7th place, before we bowled last night we had moved up to 5th place, but still 12 points behind 1st place. With our two new bowlers (Brianna and Michael) we've been really doing well. We have been able to set the 3rd highest team scratch game and series and came close to getting a bit higher last night, but came up short. Laura is bowling really consistent, hovering right around her 114/115 average. My average has been climbing rather fast, which is expected since three weeks ago I had a 161 average, and since then I've shot a 592, 584, and a 599 (last night) series, which should put me over a 170 average for next week. I keep shooting for a 600 series, but keep coming up a bit short. I almost had it last night, but guttered on the 1st ball of the 10th frame in the 3rd game, but atleast I came back to spare and get 9.

We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! We also plan to do some work at the Church during the holidays, Laura is working on the Church library and I need to install some shelves in the soundroom, but I also see a few relaxing naps over that period of time as well :)

VOTE!!

2006-11-07T05:42:00.000-06:00

Just a small reminder! GO VOTE! I am really glad we are able to early vote here in Texas. Laura and I went to the early voting station on Halloween around 5:30pm, no lines and we were the only voters there (which is not "good", but it was good for a fast in and out). We were done in about 5-10 minutes and on our way. I am just glad I don't have to fight the crowds today to do my duty as a citizen and vote.

I am realizing more and more that neither the republicans nor the democrats are really worth voting for anymore, both parties seem to be corrupt and it comes down to the lesser of the two evils. I really like the ideas of the Constitution Party, but I wonder if a 3rd party will ever pull enough people off the big two to make a difference. In the current state of things, 3rd parties only seem to draw just enough votes to hurt the republicans.

We had a pretty good night of bowling last night. Laura's friend Brianna and her boyfriend Michael came to bowl with us and we ended up splitting the points last night. Laura had a consistent 370 series for the night and I pulled out a 592 series with a 234 last game. That probably leaves us still in 7th place, but we have about 20 more weeks to go in the league and things can change alot in 20 weeks.

It's all a blurr

2006-11-03T08:49:00.000-06:00

Another Friday has come upon me, yet it still doesn't feel like the weekend yet. Just too many things going on currently. Bowling has been going good, I've been shooting better and we'll be going to practice again tonight. Most of this week and part of last week I was battling "the crud", Laura had it before me, then I got it and I am close to getting over it now. Our Halloween was spent at the Texas Roadhouse, having a nice little steak and avoiding the constant doorbell ringing. And we were glad we did. On the way home we saw several neighborhoods flooded with truckloads of kids and adults! wondering around knocking on doors. Once we got home we retired to our room to enjoy some DVR viewing and then bed.

Not much really planned for this weekend except the usual: lawn needs mowing, work for some clients, Church and some house cleaning. I hope to actually BBQ this weekend as well, it's been a month or so since I have done that. Maybe some fajitas are in order for a mild weathered weekend.

Monday Monday.......

2006-10-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

Whew! made it through my monday morning duties, not without problems, but it is finished. It'll be a grand day when we switch over from dialup to internet.

Ah well, Laura and I are both looking forward to bowling tonight. We practiced Friday night and Laura did about average, I had a shot that would not quit and shot a 214 the first game (not bad for a warmup game), then shot a 257, then started with 4 in a row I think on the 3rd game. But I accidently bowled for Alma (Nick and Alma were bowling with us), so when it was actually my turn to bowl, I started goofing off and threw Laura's bowling ball with no thumb, and the rest of the game I just pretty much goofed off, easily shooting a 600+ series, but not sure what my last game was. I am hoping that the lanes are similar tonight, and maybe I can finally put up some good numbers.

Bye Bye Time Warner

2006-10-21T16:01:00.000-05:00

We are finally proud to annouce that a dependency on Time Warner/Road Runner has come to an end. As some of you might know, we've had problems with them since moving into the house. The line that services our area comes down our alley and we are at the very end of the line. We've had problems receiving the higher end cable stations and PPV channels. Many times we called and they said they did something but it was always the same. At one point I talked to a tech that was planning on leaving the company and he told me that the line was damaged in several places and the only way to fix our problem was to re-run new lines down the alley. Of which he doubted they would do. We did finally switch to DirecTV for our TV use, and as of today we are running on SBC/AT&T DSL. Our line was activated this morning and I switched the network over to it this afternoon and all is running well. It is a tad slower than our RR connection, but it will work for now and later once we get some debt paid off I can up the account to a faster speed. And considering we are saving about $30 versus road runner, I don't mind the small speed reduction.

LJ - Student of the Week

2006-10-21T15:59:00.000-05:00

LJ was selected for Student of the week at STC, click on the photo for a larger/readable version

Ready for the weekend

2006-10-20T08:13:00.000-05:00

After a fairly busy week, I am looking forward to the weekend. Tonight we will be heading to the bowling alley for practice and Saturday and Sunday will be filled with:

Church
mowing the lawn
cleaning the house
working on our budget
editing 30+ editions of our Church radio show
sleep!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Busy Busy Busy

2006-10-19T07:50:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty busy week. Bowling on Monday, misc work on Tuesday, Church & hackers on Wednesday. I was planning on mowing the lawn this evening, but not sure if that will happen to do our first "cold front" coming in today. Oh, it'll be nice to have temps drop to the 60-70's, but how long will it last. Hopefully long enough for me to get the lawn mowed :)

Bowling was good Monday night, our new bowler could not show up, but Francis (Billy's niece) and Rene (Francis' boyfriend) where there to bowl. I shot fairly consistent during the evening, throwing a 166, 178, 160 for a 504 series, Laura had a 301 series and we ended up taking 3 points. The most points we have won, except for the first week (which we bowled the blind team :O) We are doing to well in the points, but we are having a good time. Before Monday we were in 8th place (out of 10!), but it's a long league so who knows where we might end up.

On Tuesday morning I saw alot of activity on my internet server, so investigated a bit, but found no info on what might be the problem. I did find some unknown software on the machine, so I took it off, shutdown the processes that were running that usually are running and ran a complete check on the machine. Wednesday morning I get an abuse report from my network provider, my server was sending out spam while those processes where running. So yesterday inbetween work and church I did a complete check over of the machine, installed some tripwire devices and such. I still have a bit of tweaking to do on it, but I'll get to that over the next few days. Hopefully the hole is fixed and I won't have to worry about it for awhile.

Wednesday night was a nice fun time at Church, I went in about 5:30 to move some monitors around. We have two sets of monitors, one set is made by Yamaha and sound great, the other set is a JBL set and sound like crap. In our previous setup, Britt and the drummer had the good Yamaha's and the backup singers used the JBLs. Well since Britt moved away, I had never gotten around to swapping them out, so I did that yesterday. Around 6:00, Dina (our backup/sometimes lead) singer and Laura showed up. Since our new Music Leader is off to Singapore to adopt a child, Mitch (another elder) will be leading the service, with Dina and Laura singing backup. So they ran through the song list (Hot DJ action provided by me of course), then we had our normal Wednesday service, and then home for some R and R.

Weekend Update

2006-10-14T19:52:00.000-05:00

Darn, where's that cold front we were promised!? Well it has cooled off, but not much, so we are still waiting on cooler weather. Bowling is going well, we are not doing that great as far as points, but we are really enjoying ourselves. Last night (friday is our practice night) we met a friend of Laura's (work-study at STC) that will be joining our team starting on monday. She is a nice girl and is a pretty darn good bowler. Of the 3 games we bowled last night, she shot around a 150 average. We've informed her that we have first dibs on her when tournaments come up :).

I was also pleasantly surprised today when I visited the AT&T website to discover that DSL is now available in our area, so considering the amount we are playing for road runner (without cable), I have signed up for the service. We should get the equipment this coming week and it is scheduled to be activated on the 21st. Hopefully there are no problems and we can enjoy saving a bit of money.

Now that I have this blog up, I'll be posting info on me, family, bowling, etc, etc. so stay tuned!

Finally Here!

2006-10-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally made it to blogger with my own blog now! Having a blog on my own server was really nice, but keeping up with the news posting was enough of a pain, but keeping the software current and fixing holes and such was even more of a pain, so I'll let someone else handle the technical end of matters while I concentrate on actually providing some meaningfull content! And at this point I have no meaningfull content, so I guess I am not doing my job. Oh well, I'll have some interesting stuff posted up here soon enough, so keep your eyes open!